"Viridiana" is a sequel to "Nazarin"(not meant pejoratively):both want to be saints,both are compelled to leave religion(Viridiana is raped by her uncle and cannot become a nun).Both will be laïc saints. So Viridiana takes on a bunch of beggars in her home,and tries to educate them by putting them to work.But it's too late,they are rotten to the core,and it's not long before they realize that working is pointless when you have a nice lady to take care of you. In direct contrast to Viridiana,we have her cousin:he's a realist man.For him,Viridiana's charity amounts to nothing.Bunuel proves this right with the memorable scene of the dog:what's the point of saving a poor dog when there are thousands of poor dogs in the world?Viridiana's cousin ,unlike her,does not renounce the pleasures of life and he takes good care of his desirable property. Bunuel reaches in this movie a paroxysm of violence ,satire and grand art.The beggars have a banquet,and Bunuel unleashes his anticlericalism: at the table,the mendicants stand still ,parodying Leonardo's the Last Supper.Then Viridiana is raped while a gramophone is playing ,screaming Hendel's Messiah. Like Nazarin who's got to come back to reality,and who is offered a pineapple (sexual symbol),Viridiana seems to agree to be part of a ménage à trois with her cousin and the servant as she begins to play cards with them. Needless to say,Spain censors were horrified and Bunuel would never make another film in his homeland.
Review of Viridiana
